Hlane.....More power to you. Make us proud. When I was starting into building m/l guns , I visited Dick and Donnie Getz' barrel shop. Donnie asked me , what do you expect to accomplish making m/l guns? Jokingly I said ,I wanted to cover the earth w/them.. Again , still trying to fulfill my wish. What has tempered my m/l experience is in depth study of "why were the guns made as they were?" In this study , I've found what happened in history on the frontier to bias m/l history. Personal accounts written down by relatives of the original actors have given a glimpse here and there of the guns used , what they used them for , how they hunted, the Indian wars fought , and how the guns fit into their daily lives.
Also , there is a good amount of info on the Moravian Brotherhood gun builders in eastern Pa.. Their mission statement of "helping all people in need" , caused them to come from central Europe to the American frontier, and so bringing central European gun science w/them which proved to be inadequate for the people living here. These imported m/l gunsmiths quickly followed the needs of the frontier hunters, and others wanting to protect their families . Nowadays , history , more than anything , effects what I build.
Early on , by looking at original guns , I found the sticklers to the idea of , "they never did that." , were just mostly uninformed of the true picture of what was actually done. Anyway , I'm way out in the weeds , cane break , or what ever................oldwood
